32nd Festival Lineup Announced
Out Film CT announces lineup for
the 32nd Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival,
May 31-June 8, 2019
Connecticut’s Oldest Film Festival’s Inclusive Line-up Highlights the Wide Diversity of LGBTQ Stories
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:
Film screening dates, times, locations and additional titles will be announced at the beginning of May.
The 32nd annual Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival kicks off on Friday, May 31 with the acclaimed feature film Tell It to the Bees starring Academy Award-winner Anna Paquin. In the film, Dr. Jean Markham, who has a mysterious past, returns to the small town she left as a teenager to take over her late father’s medical practice. When a young mother brings her son for treatment, the two women find themselves attracted to one another in a way that Jean recognizes and fears. In 1950s small-town Britain, their secret can’t stay hidden forever, and it has consequences. The film will be followed by the Opening Night Reception on the grounds of Trinity College.The festival introduces two brand new programs of short films on the afternoon of Saturday, June 1: It’s a Small World: International Shorts (at 2pm at Cinestudio) and Fresh Faces: Youth Shorts (at 4:30pm at Real Art Ways).
The evening of June 1 at 7:30pm, Out Film CT screens the biopic Mapplethorpe, an intimate portrait of the celebrated, influential and often shocking photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose relationship with Patti Smith and other icons of the 1970s New York scene influenced his ambitious photos while he explored his emerging sexuality. He was best known for his photographs of artists, musicians, socialites, film stars, and members of the S&M underground.
Wednesday, June 5 at 7:30pm, the festival reaches its midpoint with Gay Chorus Deep South, the 2019 Centerpiece Film. Following the divisive 2016 presidential election and a wave of anti-LGBTQ laws in southern states, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on a tour of the American Deep South to try to set the record straight about LGBTQ people. With allies in the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, they use music to bring a message of love, hope and acceptance to communities and individuals confronting intolerance. The journey brings them into people’s homes, churches and concert halls, and reveals the powerful backstories of several chorus members and their leader.
The festival concludes on Saturday, June 8 at 7:30pm with a duo of Closing Night films followed by a party at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. At the Spotlight Theatres at Front Street, the men’s film will be The Shiny Shrimps (Les Crevettes Pailletées), a hilarious and moving tale of loyalty, determination and forgiveness. Matthias is a straight Olympic swimming champion who wants one more chance at gold before ending his career, but he makes a homophobic statement on TV that gets him in trouble with the International Olympic Committee. His punishment: to coach the Shiny Shrimps, a flamboyant, amateur gay water polo team. Simultaneously, the Women’s Film at the Wadsworth Atheneum will be Vita & Virginia, detailing the legendary love affair between the literary icon Virginia Woolf and the scandalous, iconoclastic socialite Vita Sackville-West. The two women run in different circles in 1920s London, but when they cross paths, Vita is determined that the beguiling and stubborn Virginia will be her next conquest, no matter what.
The full schedule and lineup of films will be announced in early May.
Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival Dates:
Opens Friday, May 31, Cinestudio, Trinity College campus
Closes Saturday, June 8 with evening shows at Spotlight Theatres at Front Street and Wadsworth Atheneum
Opening Night/Closing Night, includes party (each night priced separately)
General Admission, $20
Student/Senior, $15
Other shows
General Admission, $10
Student/Senior, $8
Festipass – All shows plus opening night and closing night parties, $75
3-Show Pass – Any three shows except opening and closing nights, $25
